Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy and Public Policy

David Boonin is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Values and Social Policy at the University of Colorado-Boulder. He is the author of Thomas Hobbes and the Science of Moral Virtue (1994), A Defense of Abortion (2003), The Problem of Punishment (2008) Should Race Matter? (2011), and The Non-Identity Problem and the Ethics of Future People (2014). He is also the co-editor, with Graham Oddie, of the popular textbook What’s Wrong?: Applied Ethicists and Their Critics (2004).

“This handbook might … best be thought of as something more like a snapshot of the field. … this volume will nonetheless prove able to do what a good photograph can still do: capture your interest in its subject, draw you in to examine it more closely, provide mental stimulation and enjoyment, and, ideally, inspire you to think about its subject more carefully and to explore it from more angles than any one representation of it can provide.” (Scriptable, rtreview.org, Issue 60, July, 2019)

• 1.  Introduction: Philosophers and Public Policy.- 2.  Pretrial Detention and Moral Agency.- 3.  Why Brain Images Should (Probably) Not be Used in U.S. Criminal Trials.- 4.  A Defense of Jury Nullification.- 5.  Mandatory Minimums and the War on Drugs.- 6.  Criminal Punishment and Free Will.- 7.  The Promise of Neuroscience for Law: Hope or Hype?.- 8.  Feminism, Violence, and the State.- 9.   Military Psychological Operations: Ethics and Policy Considerations.- 10.  Against Interrogational Torture: Upholding a Troubled Taboo.- 11.  The Use of Lethal Drones in the War on Terror.- 12.  The Myth of Senseless Violence and the Problem of Terrorism.- 13.  A Defense of Open Borders.- 14.  Immigration Enforcement and Fairness to Would-Be Immigrants.- 15.  Toward a Non-Ideal Approach to Immigration Justice.- 16.  An Ethical Assessment of Actual Voter Behavior.- 17.  Should Children Have the Right to Vote?.- 18.  Nudges, Norms and Autonomy.- 19.  Nudges and Other Moral Technologies in the Context of Power: Assigning and Accepting Responsibility.- 20.  Public Policy and the Administrative Evil of Special Education.- 21.  Manufacturing Monsters: Dehumanization and Public Policy.- 22.  Is Religion Special? More Likely Than Not!.- 23.  Animals and Political Standing.- 24.  The Liberty of Thought and Discussion: Restatement and Implications.- 25.  Free Speech and Discrimination in the Cake Wars.- 26.  Whose Public? The Stakes of Citizens United.- 27.  The Ethics of Racist Monuments.- 28.  Free to Inquire: The Evolution-Creationism Controversy as a Test Case in Equal Time and Free Speech.- 29.  Pedophilia and Computer-Generated Child Pornography.- 30.  Does the ADA Discriminate Against Deaf People?.- 31.  Principles of Distributive Justice.- 32.  When Equality Matters.- 33.  Feminism, Gender Inequality, and Public Policy.- 34.  Understanding Effective Altruism and its Challenges.- 35.  Economic Rent, Rent-Seeking Behavior, and the Case of Privatized Incarceration.- 36.  Accounting for Intrinsic Values in the Federal Student Loan System.- 37.   Borrowed Knowledge: Pedagogy and Student Debt in the Neoliberal University.- 38.  Challenging the Therapy/Enhancement Distinction in CRISPR Gene Editing.- 39.  CRISPR and the Ethics of Gene Drive in Mosquitoes.- 40.  Enhancement and Cheating: Implications for Policy in Sport.- 41.  Sexual Orientation Minority Rights and High-Tech Conversion Therapy.- 42.  Why Policy Making Should Not Be Based on Evolutionary Accounts of Human Behavior.- 43.  Exploitation and International Clinical Research: The Disconnect Between Goals and Policy.- 44.  Mandating Data Exclusivity for Pharmaceuticals Through International Agreements: A Fair Idea?.- 45.  Big Data: Ethical Considerations.- 46.  Professionalism and the Ethics of Conscientious Objection Accommodation in Medicine.- 47.  American Pragmatism, Disability, and the Politics of Resilience in Mental Health Education.- 48.  Human Cloning: Stereotypes, Public Policy, and the Law.- 49.  The Metaphysics of Surrogacy.- 50.  Legislating Pain Capability: Sentience and the Abortion Debate.- 51.  Welcoming the Unborn: Towards a Politics of Inclusion.- 52.  Palliation and Medically Assisted Dying: A Case Study in the Use of Slippery Slope Arguments in Public Policy.- 53.  “I Support the Right to Die.  You Go First.”: Bias and Physician-Assisted Suicide.- 54.  Organ Procurement: The Ethical Obligation to Release Organs.- 55.  Women, Land, and Eco-Justice.- 56.  A Rights-Based Conception of The Precautionary Principle.- 57.  Roles for Socially-Engaged Philosophy of Science in Environmental Policy.- 58.  The Acceleration of Global Warming as a Crime Against Humanity: A Moral Case for Fossil Fuel Divestment.- 59.  Environmental Civil Disobedience.- 60.  Reliance Structures: How Urban Public Policy Shapes Human Agency.- 61. Toward a Galactic Common Good: Space Exploration Ethics.